Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Yet again, I'm baking scones for work. A couple of the women there decided to have a bake sale to raise money for the relief effort in Myanmar, so I volunteered to bake something to sell. Hence I'm bringing two batches of Lemon Cream Scones in to work tomorrow (made with this recipe plus one small lemon's worth of lemon zest in each batch). However, I did make a third batch... a secret, extra-special batch to be shared with my friends down here.

What flavor? It's a secret. I'll share on Friday (provided I remember to do so between the munching of delicious scones).

I do have some sad news to share as well. I got an email from my mother this morning. My aunt has been in and out of the hospital for more than six months. Most recently she went back in after being out for only a day because she broke her hip. (Notes for those who aren't familiar with my family: most of my aunts and uncles are fairly old, as my parents decided to have children rather late in life. My aunt, for example, is in her 70's.) Last night they discovered that she had no circulation in the lower half of her leg, due in part to a 20-year-old surgery that removed a vein from that leg to perform a heart bypass. She was scheduled to go into surgery sometime this afternoon to try and repair the leg with an artificial vein. But if that doesn't work, they will have to amputate her leg above the knee.

I was never very close to my aunt, for a lot of reasons, but this news has me kinda freaked out. There's some concern that, with how frail she's been, she won't even survive the surgery. And even if she does, she's probably going to be in the hospital for a long time.

It's kind of hard to talk about, so I'll just leave it at that for now.

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Saturday, May 17, 2008

You know what movie I really want to watch right now? More than anything in the world? A few hints first: it's a musical. From 1954. It's one of my mother's favorites, and I grew up watching it on a (progressively deteriorating) VHS tape. It's got a bunch of redheaded men in it. A lot of people would say it's appallingly anti-feminist. Figure it out yet?